Between the Battles & the Art ... > The Count's Tavern

So St. Patricks Day is coming....

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S.O.F:

--- Quote from: KTG17 on February 22, 2023, 04:21:01 PM ---Well, I remember Pres Clinton going over to Ireland and I believe help cutting off support for the IRA in the US. So I am guessing this was mostly happening in Northern Ireland? Guess I don't see much of a reason for them to be active in the south.

Would the IRA at the time in NA be Irish living in NA who want them to join the rest of Ireland, or the IRA be from the south trying to get the English out of NA?

--- End quote ---

Post Free State, IRA support while found in the Republic of Ireland was loudest from the diaspora. I long time family friend and faux Uncle of mine was apparently investigated by the FBI in the 80's for sending money to the IRA.

It is an interesting measure of demographics sometimes to. Until the 1920's there were more native born Irish living in the US then there were people living in all of Ulster. And the agitation of the diaspora was long and storied, post the US Civil War they invaded Canada in the hopes of trading it for Ireland. The Fenians even sold war bonds and the whole bit. Though they were barely a generation separated from the great famine, there is a cultural attraction to bitter history. The Easter Rising even bothered to recount that on six times previous the Irish had taken up arms against the English Crown as part of it's proclamation of a new Irish Republic.   

S.O.F:
As an anecdote, I saw Flogging Molly in 2005 in Milwaukee at "The Rave". The part that is still striking to me is that the band pointed out that week the IRA had decided to agree with larger disarmament and the band talked of it. The mosh pit crowd and those on the floor of that venue, younger demographically cheered at this statement while the gallery of late 20's and up folks booed. Perhaps generational but old resentments die hard.

*I was just 21 and I made a meh sound leaning negative from the gallery.

When I was later in Grad School in Milwaukee one of that bars near campus had the straw and napkin array in the Irish flag form, I got a free drink for being the first ever to make comment on it and then had a long conversation with the owner on the Troubles and why he refused to ever take the order of an Irish Car Bomb.

KTG17:
Ok, so I had to hit Wiki to try and sort out my confusion and got even more confusion:


--- Quote ---The playwright and former IRA member Brendan Behan once said that the first issue on any Irish organisation's agenda was "the split".[3] For the IRA, that has often been the case. The first split came after the Anglo-Irish Treaty in 1921, with supporters of the Treaty forming the nucleus of the National Army of the newly created Irish Free State, while the anti-treaty forces continued to use the name Irish Republican Army. After the end of the Irish Civil War (1922–23), the IRA was around in one form or another for forty years, when it split into the Official IRA and the Provisional IRA in 1969. The latter then had its own breakaways, namely the Real IRA and the Continuity IRA, each claiming to be the true successor of the Army of the Irish Republic.
--- End quote ---

What the hell. All I have heard over here is the IRA. Didn't know things were so fractured.  :eusa_wall:

I feel like a civil war on an island like Ireland has to be a claustrophobic experience. Its not its easy to just drive off and avoid it. You're on an island, mixed in with people who may or may not share your same views but you might have a hard time knowing who you can trust.

S.O.F:

--- Quote from: KTG17 on February 22, 2023, 05:43:57 PM ---Ok, so I had to hit Wiki to try and sort out my confusion and got even more confusion:

--- End quote ---

Have you never seen The Life of Brian?

KTG17:
Yeah its an absolute classic and my fav Monty Python film.

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